To make these drawings, I engage a systematic process that branches into new forms as I meet if / else junctures in the work. The series grows iteratively, engaging perception as a subject and a means.

To begin, I draw a line and repeat it, until I have a relatively dense grid. I apply perspective to this grid and establish a basic unit of pictorial space. That bound unit: lines and perspective; becomes the foundation for building complexity. Variables such as repetition, color, incremental rotation, inversion, concentration and dispersion are applied. The properties of the initial unit are subverted and transformed.

I look for a play between solidity and transparency; mass and lightness, concentration and diffusion. I slow down perception through a build up of marks that almost assimilate or aggregate into an optical mixture; marks that resolve into patterns created by processes of rotation and layering. These patterns and binary relationships emerge slowly. The networks of lines converge and disperse creating multiple visual paths through fields of structured accumulation.

This analogue of a computer process is executed with my very human hand, errors, thought, and subjectivity. The optical game stands in for my struggle to comprehend the complexities of seeing.I want to create a space where point of view can not be fixed.

When I was a child, I would explore the woods behind my house. I ventured alone, following a small creek. One winter day, I deviated from my usual path. As I walked, I heard a man shout. A pack of barking dogs ran toward me. I immediately dropped to the snowy ground and pretended to be dead. I held my breath. The dogs surrounded me, sniffed and snorted. I had never felt that kind of fear before, the fear of being eaten alive.

Artist Statement: My photographs portray a series of contorted body parts, juxtaposed with ordinary yet highly stylized props. Using color as my narrative, I take the viewer on an eerie trip through staged, fairytale crime scenes. My ritualistic images draw from my own childhood memories, exploring themes of isolation, detachment and self-identity.

UntitledTony Bonada (Age 12) Created in the 1930s

Part of the Children's Museum of the Arts' Permanent Collection

The Children's Museum of the Arts is a nonprofit arts facility that brings hands-on art programming to children throughout New York City. The mission of the Children’s Museum of the Arts is to introduce children and their families to the transformative power of the arts by providing opportunities to make art side-by-side with working artists. Our staff of practicing Teaching Artists guide and mentor young artists ages 10 months to 15 years through fun and advanced art projects, ranging in a variety of techniques and mediums.

The Children's Museum of the Arts maintains a Permanent Collection of over two thousand pieces of children’s art from over 50 countries, dating back to the 1930s.

This specific piece is part of the sub-collection, The Kunyoshi Collection. In the early 1990s Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s widow, Sara Mazo Kuniyoshi, donated 19 paintings, created by children during the late 1930s in WPA-sponsored Community Art Centers in New York City, to the Children’s Museum of the Arts. Yasuo Kuniyoshi was an American painter, printmaker, and photographer who worked as a teacher at the New School for Social Research and The Art Student’s League during the Great Depression. While our research has not been able to confirm that Kuniyoshi himself taught the students whose artwork makes up this collection, like many artists during this time period he collected children’s art as a source of inspiration for his own work.